Note 2686 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES. (continued 2)

“Quum cerificavere.” Cuvier remarks that Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 14, says, that these shell-fish make “waxen combs,” meaning thereby collections of cells, similar to those formed by the bee; and it is to this notion that Pliny refers in the use of the word “cerificavere.” It is the fact, Cuvier says, that the univalve sea shell-fish, and more particularly the buccini and the murices, envelope their eggs with glutinous vesicles of varied forms, according to the respective species; which, when massed together, may be not inappropriately termed “combs.”